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Credits
Every game includes a credits sequence accessible from the options menu. In most cases, these credits sequences not only list off the people who worked on the game, but also include an animation to accompany it. These animations all have the same style and many appear across multiple games in the series, and they are related to the current list of people displayed. They also all use a jazz score for the background music composed by Joey Edelman, and this in turn was usually included in its entirety as a bonus CD audio track. Four games in the series have a unique set of credits (more on that below). The credits sequences are listed in order of which they first debuted. Wizard A wizard attempts to create a dog out of nothing, but at first struggles making anything at all, then makes a rat but is dissatisfied, then morphs it to a chicken. Still frustrated, he tries one more time, and is successful at making a dog. However, as he is giving an aside for his accomplishment, the dog morphs into a large dragon unbeknowest to him. The dragon pulls the wizard's sleeve to get his attention, which completely scares the wizard and leads to him fainting. The dragon simply gives an aside glance, chuckling. This credit sequence doesn't have any real consistency on who it includes; one game it may include the production staff, another it may include the artistic direction. Appearances: *''Just Grandma and Me'' *''The Tortoise and the Hare'' *''Arthur's Birthday'' *''Sheila Rae, the Brave'' *''The Berenstain Bears in the Dark'' Music A pianist, a trombone player, and a double bass player all prepare to play the jazz score that accompanies the credits, with a one-man-band on the far right occasionally interrupting with cartoonish noises. The one-man-band is equipped with a whole slew of instruments, such as a saxophone, a bass drum, a bike horn, a cow bell, and even a green bird. After multiple interruptions occur, he finishes off by shooting a pop-gun. This is followed by glass breaking in the distance, shocking the other musicians. This sequence is almost always accompanied by the sound team, including music, sound engineers, and voice actors. It has by far the most appearances across the Living Books games. Appearances: *''Just Grandma and Me'' *''The New Kid on the Block'' *''Little Monster at School'' *''Arthur's Birthday'' *''Harry and the Haunted House'' *''The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight'' *''Dr. Seuss' ABC'' *''Sheila Rae, the Brave'' *''The Berenstain Bears in the Dark'' *''Stellaluna'' *''Arthur's Reading Race'' *''The Cat in the Hat'' *''Green Eggs and Ham'' Painting A male and female artist are painting a red triangle and a green circle, respectively. The male painter mistakenly flings some of his to the female painter, which the female painter strikes back in retaliation by intentionally flinging her red paint back onto his green paint. This fight goes on for some time, until it eventually ends with them splashing their paint buckets on each other's canvases. However, their red triangle and green circle both shows up again afterwards, with each taking notice. They are both pleased by this, and shake hands. This is almost always used when the artistic team is being listed off. Appearances: *''Arthur's Teacher Trouble'' *''Little Monster at School'' *''Harry and the Haunted House'' *''The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight'' *''Dr. Seuss' ABC'' *''Sheila Rae, the Brave'' *''The Berenstain Bears in the Dark'' *''Arthur's Reading Race'' *''The Cat in the Hat'' *''Arthur's Birthday'' (UK version only) Programmer A programmer sits in front of his computer, starting to type away. A bunch of nonsense code starts to appear above, but he takes it too far away and the cords turn burning red and kaboom! The computer eventually bursts and falls apart (in a cartoonish fashion). In the aftermath, a cube lands on the programmer's head, then he is exasperated, and the computer's screen starts blinking red and making electrical zapping noises. He chuckles at the player going "b-huh" (in the Arthur's Teacher Trouble version only). This scene is typically accompanied with the programming team. Appearances: *''Arthur's Teacher Trouble'' (the only time "b-huh" is heard) *''The New Kid on the Block'' (without ceiling crash effect) *''Little Monster at School'' (with ceiling crash effect) *''Arthur's Birthday'' (with ceiling crash effect) *''Harry and the Haunted House'' (without ceiling crash effect) *''Dr. Seuss' ABC'' (without ceiling crash effect) *''Stellaluna'' (with ceiling crash effect) *''Arthur's Reading Race'' (with ceiling crash effect) *''The Cat in the Hat'' (with ceiling crash effect) *''Just Grandma and Me (V2 only)* Phone A worker is taking in calls from two phones at the same time, all while a group of people open the door to his left and start tossing him all sorts of shapes, all while he begins to juggle them. After the group of people leave, the worker tosses his shapes up into the air, and starts catching all of the falling shapes and stacking them up onto his finger. After that, the worker gives an aside glance and waves his arm out, with one phone hanging on his arm and ringing. This is an obvious visual representation of what working on the production staff can feel like, showing how many things they can have to worry about at once. Likewise, the production staff is usually featured whenever this one comes up. Appearances: *The Tortoise and the Hare'' *''Stellaluna'' *''The Cat in the Hat'' Voiceover A guy with headphones and using a recording machine holds a microphone up to the lady, and the lady screams very loud and blows the guy's headphones away, and the volume meter on the recording machine displays very large sound waves. The headphones fling back onto the guy's head, and the guy then decides to do a sound test on the kitty cat. The lady then steps on the cat's tail, the cat screeches, the cat runs away, and the volume meter on the recording machine goes farther (not all the way to the top like the lady's scream, though). The cat then runs off the screen, and the guy then makes an "okay" sign with his finger to the lady to show her for doing a good job. The guy then gives an aside glance and squints. Like the Music credits animation, this one was only involved with the sound team, including music, sound engineers, and voice actors. This credits animation is extremely rare and it only appears in the credits on the Phillips CD-i version of ''Little Monster at School'', and never made it into any of the Windows/Macintosh computer versions. This credits animation has been recovered by a YouTuber, GeorgeQGreg, and subsequently uploaded by ARemoteAndRandomName. Appearances: * ''Little Monster at School'''' (Phillips CD-i version only) Cheering Seven people stand in a line facing the screen, all cheering. At the end of the animation, within a few seconds, the blonde woman on the far left accidentally lets go of a balloon and it pops, startling everyone. This is used to show the remaining members not already covered in other sections, like quality assurance and special thanks. Appearances: *Stellaluna'' *''Arthur's Reading Race'' *''The Cat in the Hat'' Other Credits Sequences Four games in the series do not follow the traditional credits, instead adopting a custom one. , ''Green Eggs and Ham'', ''Arthur's Computer Adventure'', and ''D.W. the Picky Eater''.]] *''Ruff's Bone: On the left the credits roll, and Ruff sits underneath them, while on the right there are four picture portraits with a member of the development team appearing on each picture. The game's usual title theme substitutes Joey Edelman's jazz score. *Green Eggs and Ham: While Joey Edelman's score is used for this sequence, the animations are substituted for a storyboard sequence of every page, although it has the audio versions from the three credits animations: Wizard, Painting, and Music. If this game has the normal credits, it would've had the same animations from The Berenstain Bears in the Dark. *Arthur's Computer Adventure: The credits are placed in front of a Deep Dark Sea background with a unique score that is actually used from the Deep Dark Sea mini game. *D.W. the Picky Eater: The credits scroll in front of the page from the book where D.W. is peeking over the dinner table, with various music from the game playing. Original Variant of the Credits Theme and [[Arthur's Teacher Trouble|''Arthur's Teacher Trouble]].]] This variant was only used in Just Grandma and Me and Arthur's Teacher Trouble. It includes the Wizard's background music with the piano music being barely heard, and background music from the Music animation sharing the same tune as the Programmer one. The music in the Painting animation remained the same with no changes, but the Programmer animation played the entire song without getting the ending piece cut off in the middle. Trivia * It is implied that all the credits animations were made during production on Just Grandma and Me so that the producers of the Living Books games could take the animations and make up a random sequence of credits animations for each game. * The Wizard, Phone and Cheering animations have had the least number of appearances in the series, with the Voiceover one being the scarcest. * The Music animation has by far the most appearances across the Living Books games, except Arthur's Teacher Trouble and Aesop's Fables The Tortoise and the Hare. * In the first two games Just Grandma and Me (V1) and Arthur's Teacher Trouble, the Wizard, Music, Painting and Programmer animations had several sound differences (including louder cymbal instruments), along with minor graphic differences, compared to the usual versions seen in later games. ** In the credits for Just Grandma and Me, the Wizard animation's music was composed at a different session, where the main piano track was lower in volume amplification, faded into the background and barely able to be heard, making the background instruments much louder than the main piano track. This was corrected back in the credits for the The Tortoise and the Hare ''(and even for the UK release of ''Just Grandma and Me). *** The original version of the wizard animation is still on Just Grandma and Me V2 and the Hebrew dub of the game. ** In the original version of the Music animation as seen in ''Just Grandma and Me'' V1, the guy playing the trombone was playing a tune that had the same arrangement as the Programmer animation, but in all the other games (even in Just Grandma and Me V2), this type of trombone tune (being like the tune from the Programmer) was no longer used. Instead, the trombonist plays the main tune of the Living Books Credits song, like in the Phone animation. **In Arthur's Teacher Trouble, the music in the Painting animation was composed at a different session, where the background instruments (behind the clarinet) had different quality to the music. ** The original version of the Programmer animation had the beginning portion of the music (and animation) cut, and the Programmer tune also had the full 3rd piece (which was cut on the CD audio track and in later games) that can be heard if you find a way to pause the animation to let the entire sound play (more on that below). At the end after the computer stops making electric zapping sounds, the programmer looks at the viewer with a sad look on his face and says "b-huh" in a sad tone. He doesn't say this in any other games he appeared in. * For an unknown reason, as early versions of the Living Books Credits animations from the first two games were phased out by the time both The Tortoise and the Hare and ''The New Kid on the Block'' were released, a clarinet version of the Programmer tune was never composed. It is unknown if it was never composed in the first place, or if Living Books did compose it but never publicly released it in a credits sequence. ** On a similar note, the Voiceover animation oddly doesn't have a tune of its own composed– it just uses a combination of instrumentals from other credits sequences: It uses the one from Wizard, then Programmer, thirdly Phone, and finally a merge of the clarinet/piano/trombone. * Little Monster at School's credits sequence including Painting, Programmer, and Music has been reused in Harry and the Haunted House and Dr. Seuss' ABC, with minor graphic and audio changes. ** The Dr. Seuss' ABC version of the Programmer animation also cuts the portion where the guy continues to type on his keyboard and bends down as he continues typing, making it jump from his glance towards the viewer straight to the computer about to blow up. * When the dragon scared the wizard, the wizard's skin was changing from dark to white. As the wizard did scream, no scream sound effect was used at all due to the background music playing over it. * In the Programmer animation, the ceiling crash effect can be heard from Arthur's Teacher Trouble (despite being cut off), Little Monster at School, Arthur's Birthday, Stellaluna, Arthur's Reading Race, The Cat in the Hat, and V2 of Just Grandma and Me. ** Exceptions include The New Kid on the Block, Harry and the Haunted House and Dr. Seuss' ABC, where the crash sound effect was removed after the computer exploded and before a small cube landed on the guy's head. ** In Arthur's Teacher Trouble, the ceiling crash sound effect is in there, but cut off by the "boing" sound effect due to the computer exploding sound effect (with which the ceiling crash sound effect was actually part of) having ran for longer than the animation (this was before the other games fixed it by letting the animation pause and wait for the animation to finish). However, there's two ways to hear the crash sound effect in this game: *** If you play the game on ScummVM, you can hear the sound effects still playing past the animation pause point, hence merging in other sound effects at the same time instead of cutting them off. *** If you play it on an older pre-OS 9 Mac computer, you would have to click and hold the window bar at the top screen to pause the animation and wait for the sound effect to finish. * In the credits for Little Monster at School and Arthur's Birthday, at one point in the Programmer animation when the guy keeps typing on his computer, the following graphic/color errors occured: ** The computer's wires turned dark blue instead of red. ** After the computer explodes, the guy's white shirt turns blue-green (fixed in V2 of Arthur's Birthday). ** The computer's wires and monitor were also blue green (the ceiling-crash sound effect from the credits in later games was used for the first time without being cut off). ** When the computer's monitor was blinking in front of the guy's face after he lies down on his desk, the shining from the computer's blinking red monitor in front of the guy's face was blue instead of red. * In the Cheering animation, the people were cheering, but no sound effects of cheering and applause were used at all, due to the music playing over it. Even after the music cuts off, the cheering people are still silent, making the only sound effect in the animation being the balloon popping at the end. * Not counting Arthur's Birthday V2, The Cat in the Hat is the last Living Books game to use the usual kind of credits animations, including the Phone, Painting, Programmer, Music, and Cheering animations. ** Not counting Arthur's Birthday ''V2, the Wizard animation on the other hand last appears in ''The Berenstain Bears in the Dark. * The United States versions of most Living Books games used three credits animations most of the time, but the PAL versions of most games always used the same two credits animations every time: First, Painting, then second, Music. Strangely enough, The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight used a reversed order of these two credits animations for its credits this way: First, Music, and then secondly, Painting. Category:Living Books Games